The feeling around Calgary after the 2006-07 season was that the Flames had to right the ship. Immediately demoting Jim Playfair and bringing in Mike Keenan to coach the veteran-laden Flames made logical sense - though in retrospect, it's exactly the kind of drastic move you see from teams that are trying to not to let their dwindling playoff chances slip away.

But before the proverbial "window" would begin to close for the Flames, they would make a run at it. And what followed was a pretty good season by the Flames, albeit one derailed when they faced a team tailor-made to beat them in the post-season.

The Calgary Flames' roster appears to be mostly set. If anything, they now have to cut down players, rather than add more; particularly in the forward department.

Defence, on the other hand? The Flames may have fixed their top four woes by adding Dougie Hamilton, but there's more that can be done, and some high profile, quality defencemen still left on the open market for the taking.

But here's a pretty big problem to adding another high profile defenceman (i.e., not David Schlemko, although he'd be great, too): the salary cap.

It's not July 1 anymore, though. Mike Green and especially Andrej Sekera generated huge deals. Can the same happen for remaining free agents on the market, or does history say they'll have to sign for less?

The 2005-06 Calgary Flames were a really good regular season team that
collapsed in the playoffs. The 2006-07 Calgary Flames were, in many
ways, a team that was lucky to make the post-season dance.

Whether
it was some new additions or their brand-new head coach, the Calgary
Flames began their gradual post-2004 descent in 2006-07 - a process that
continued largely unabated until the team was finally blown up in the spring of 2013.

The Calgary Flames captured the imagination of the hockey world in 2003-04. They had a season where everything went right, seemingly - until the end - and the franchise finally had some momentum after being a league-wide afterthought since the early 1990s.

And then they missed an entire season due to the lockout.

When the NHL resumed played in the fall of 2005, the game was much different. But Darryl Sutter had time to reshape his motley crew into a more polished, veteran-laden group that really should've performed better in the playoffs than they actually did. The 2005-06 Calgary Flames were a great team on paper. Unfortunately, they didn't play the post-season on paper.

As free agency enters it's second month, one of the small mysteries for me has been the future of defenceman David Schlemko. Claimed on waivers late in the season by the Flames, I thought the serviceable blueliner more than held his own in the role he was given. Is this high priority stuff for Calgary? No, it's not. But I do think you can make a compelling case why bringing him back makes sense.